


You Are A Revolution

by nerdycombeferre (thelastoftheconsultingdetectives)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Absent Parents, Eventual Enjolras/Grantaire, M/M, Mentions of homophobia, Modern AU, Other, femme enjolras, les amis as a student activist group in modern-day paris, mention of cosette/éponine, non-graphic mentions of violence, semi-platonic enjolras/combeferre/courfeyrac
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 11,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelastoftheconsultingdetectives/pseuds/nerdycombeferre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it feels like he’s breaking. Like a fiery bird made out of all of his anger and desperation and hopeless longing will finally break the cage of his ribs and take flight only to combust like Icarus, leaving nothing but the crumpled shell of him behind. Sometimes it feels like there is nothing inside of him but the waste of burned-out stars and dirty snow. Sometimes he’s filled to spilling with an idealism so bright and pure that he can almost feel the light of it escaping him, leaking out through his eyes in white shards. In those moments he feels like he could raise his hand and bless or destroy, he does not know which. There is a part of him that still believes in something already half-forgotten from the stories of his childhood, even though he hopes for nothing. What he believes in, what there is left to believe in for someone who is afraid of nothing and has never been given a reason to have faith in anyone, he does not know either. He is a fanatic without a cause and fights carrying no banner but his anger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

Enjolras is thirteen when he realizes that he likes boys. It’s not dramatic, in the form of a first love or a sudden violent stab of intense physical attraction. It’s more like returning your focus to the present after a long moment of reverie and realizing that someone has been talking to you the whole time, trying in vain to get your attention while you remained only unconsciously aware of them. He is only a little older when he realizes two other things – firstly, that a boy who likes boys will get into trouble because of it if he doesn’t keep quiet. And secondly: that he is never going to.

He is desperately skinny, sharp elbows and pale, feverish skin; a sickly flower, grown in the dull gloom of the empty, cavernous rooms of the too-large apartment on the rue de Rivoli. His father is distant, only interested in the idea of his son, and his mother is a veritable Daisy Buchanan; a child herself, eyes lighting up like cheap plastic diamonds when he enters her room led by the hand of one of his nurses, but forgetting all about him the moment the door gently closes behind the pair of them again. He is a beautiful child and his nurses dote on him in the fleeting, unattached one dotes on other people’s children, but sooner or later they all leave and are replaced by new, strange ones. Sometimes the old lady living in the concièrge’s apartment on the first floor will find him sitting all by himself out in the stairwell with a book of stories in his lap and invite him down. She’ll make him tea and let him play with her cat. He loves her cat, even though he’ll sneeze and start crying if he buries his nose too deep in the thick, fluffy fur. In some moments when he is older, the only thing Enjolras will remember clearly about his childhood is a desire to scream.

At thirteen he’s growing too fast, growing pains keeping him awake for nights on end. The pure, almost angelic beauty of his childhood still clings to his face, an unsettling contrast to the sharpness of his eyes. He wears it with the same mixture of awkwardness and haughtiness with which he carries his too long, clumsy limbs. His voice cracks when he yells back at them. He is still half a child, but there is already something simultaneously charming and terrible about him, flashing like the two sides of a bright coin spinning as it falls through the air. Sometimes it’s even enough to make them hesitate for a second when he provokes them.

He steals one of his mother’s credit cards and buys a pair of heavy platform boots and a small, glittery backpack on his way home from school. The next day he comes home without the backpack, blood still trickling from his nose and on to his white uniform shirt. The water in the sink turns a sickly shade of pink as he washes his face. He looks up slowly and meets his own gaze in the mirror. His face looks like cracked china, the splotchy, dark bruise practically obscene on his absurdly fine features. He pulls his pale hair back, only a few wet strands clinging to his cheeks. He looks like a girl. He looks at himself and for the first time he sees something new in his reflection. He sees a weapon.

He keeps getting into fights. They’re stronger than him, but he’s faster and meaner. He constantly finds new ways to grate their eyes and they find it easier to hate than to be afraid. His teachers admire and fear him in equal measure as he’s as likely to put forward a precocious, well-structured argument as he is to nonchalantly paint his nails while sitting in the front of the classroom and just smirk in defiant silence when he is increasingly desperately rebuked. One day when he’s cornered outside of the cantine during lunch break he almost pushes a boy out the window. The principal tries to reach his father at work with Enjolras folded up in the armchair across her desk, calm and disdainful as he gnaws the black nail polish from his right thumb nail. The tiny flakes fall on the thick carpet one by one as she calls one, two, three times without reaching him. Enjolras never takes his eyes off her.

Sometimes it feels like he’s breaking. Like a fiery bird made out of all of his anger and desperation and hopeless longing will finally break the cage of his ribs and take flight only to combust like Icarus, leaving nothing but the crumpled shell of him behind. Sometimes it feels like there is nothing inside of him but the waste of burned-out stars and dirty snow. Sometimes he’s filled to spilling with an idealism so bright and pure that he can almost feel the light of it escaping him, leaking out through his eyes in white shards. In those moments he feels like he could raise his hand and bless or destroy, he does not know which. There is a part of him that still believes in something already half-forgotten from the stories of his childhood, even though he hopes for nothing. What he believes in, what there is left to believe in for someone who is afraid of nothing and has never been given a reason to have faith in anyone, he does not know either. He is a fanatic without a cause and fights carrying no banner but his anger.

The boy finds Enjolras in the bathroom on the second floor. When he opens the door of the narrow stall he’s there, crouching on the floor under the sink like a wild animal with fresh blood smeared over his mouth, a dropped paper towel at his feet. Enjolras recognizes the timid-looking boy with the button-down shirt and the round, tortoise-shell glasses from his science class. The teacher uses to tell him off for reading during class. Sometimes when Enjolras turns his head during a lesson he imagines that he catches the boy’s eyes quickly flittering away from the back of his head and down, a sudden pink tinge to his cheeks, as if he’d been watching him just a moment ago. Enjolras has never heard him speak before. 

The boy’s natural desire to help is stronger than his shyness in that moment and Enjolras has never known more than fleeting kindness, but some part of him still manages to recognize it now, in this strange boy. It stuns him, makes him compliant in a way no threat has ever managed. Enjolras stands still, a hand on the sink to steady himself as the boy wets another paper towel and gently presses it to the fresh cut in his swollen lower lip. It stings and something in his chest clenches like a fist, but not from the pain.  
The boy smiles hesitantly, feeling a little embarrassed but still oddly calm, somehow heavy. The other’s eyes are wide open, blue as the clear summer sky’s reflection on sea water. They make cleaning violence of this stranger’s face in this dirty school bathroom feel as if nothing truly important has ever happened to him before this moment. He feels dizzy. _I'm Combeferre_ , he says softly.


	2. II

His name was Combeferre and at fourteen he had the mind of a philosopher or a scientist and the heart of a dreamer. He was as prone to logical reasoning as he was to daydreaming, and more than anything, he was kind. He preferred loneliness to lies and not thinking that his classmates would accept him for who he was, he learned to hide in plain sight, behind his glasses, his books and his quietness. Still, he did not resent them. Someone his mother’s age would have dismissed his feelings as the naivety of youth, while someone his grand-mother’s would have recognized them as a wisdom far beyond his years. Biding his time in stillness, he escaped to the world that he kept inside of him, a world he had constructed with much care ever since he was a child and which by now was just as rich, beautiful and complex as the one surrounding him. His curiosity knew no limits and he took joy and pride in every new piece of knowledge that he acquired, like a child collecting bright gemstones and storing them lovingly in an old, battered tea can underneath his bed. His capacity for love and acceptance was as endless as his longing for those things. 

Combeferre is calm in the places where Enjolras is burning, patient where he is unforgiving. He is glue in all the cracks, the only one who can stop his head from screaming. The world is not as unbearably ugly when filtered through Combeferre, like murky water seeping in through his eyes and ears and pouring out clean through his mouth. He learns to take care of Enjolras; to keep Band-Aids in his bag for the times he can’t hold him back, to keep candy in his pockets for the afternoons when he gets dizzy from hypoglycemia because he hates going to the cantine. Combeferre wants to wash the world in the light of dawn and Enjolras wants to burn it to the ground, and so their minds interlace as tenderly and naturally as the hands of lovers on the brink of sleep, one completing the other just like thin fingers fitting gingerly in the clammy spaces between someone else’s.

Combeferre’s mother works odd hours at the Pitié-Salpêtrière, and Enjolras starts spending his week-ends there to get away from home. They lie awake in the narrow bed until morning, fighting sleep and talking. Sometimes they tickle each other until they’re screaming with laughter, the small bedroom spinning around them. Being so close to each other feels like teetering right on the edge of a void, equal parts dizzying vertigo and a strange, lucid calm. They feel the urge to fall, their bodies heavy and tingling with anticipation, but still they linger on the edge, suspending the moment in time. Sometimes Combeferre stays awake after Enjolras has fallen asleep, just looking at his face, burrowed into the other side of the pillow. It glows faintly in the semi-darkness, a pale cloud slightly blurred by Combeferre’s myopia even though he’s lying so close. The stern lines of his face finally soften in sleep, long golden eyelashes dropping like soft feathers against his cheeks and shading the line of freckles the spring sun has already enticed out on top of his too-sharp cheekbones. Combeferre falls asleep smiling softly.

It is so fragile, this strange, sudden and overwhelming sense of belonging. The wonderment, the heady relief of it so close to the still too fresh memory of loneliness, two vessels running parallel under skin that is too thin. They prod their happiness with caution, a single toe dipped carefully in warm, dark water, afraid of the things that might be hiding in the depths. Combeferre’s mother asks him one morning if Enjolras is his boyfriend, not quite managing to keep the hopeful tone out of her voice. It’s a little embarrassing, but Combeferre still loves her for it. No, he answers. We’re just really good friends, that’s all.

They kiss. The first time it’s out of pure curiosity, because none of them have ever kissed anyone before. They sit on the edge of Combeferre’s bed, Combeferre’s glasses removed and placed carefully on his pillow. The kiss is tentative, clumsy and warm; Combeferre’s hands nestles feather light into the loose, soft hair at Enjolras’ temples and Enjolras giggles and breathes heavily into his mouth, wet lips slipping against his. Combeferre’s tongue tastes like English Breakfast and milk, Enjolras’ like sleep. They fall back on the bed afterwards, Enjolras still giggling and Combeferre smiling and almost ending up crushing his glasses under his head. The second time is just because they can, because it feels good, safe. Because they can’t get any closer anyway. The third time feels as natural as breathing. They don’t need a word for what they are, they’re simply together and that’s all that matters.


	3. III

They finally leave the collège for lycée and Enjolras climbs the fence of the school yard, breaks the security camera and spray paints _Dieu amie les hommes_ in huge red letters on the façade as way of saying good-bye. Combeferre makes a feeble attempt to scold him as he scrubs the paint from under his nails underneath the tap, but the disapproval in his voice does not quite reach his eyes. Enjolras grins, teeth sharp and lips red and soft.

The atmosphere of the private Neuilly lycée chokes Enjolras like the smell of old dust. It reminds him too much of the oppressive silence of his own home, and it makes him want to scream and break things. The only thing stopping him is Combeferre’s gentle fingers lacing between his underneath the desk. He undoes the buttons of his shirt collar, loosens his tie and discards his uniform shoes for combat boots. At sixteen his features still haven’t lost any of their delicate fineness and he has grown his pale hair to the point where Combeferre can easily tie it back with a ribbon. Men start cat-calling him in the métro in the evenings, mistaking him for a girl. He turns and yells at them at the top of his voice, watching them turn pale when they realize their mistake, flashing them his wolf grin and his middle finger before he runs, knocking people out of his way with his book bag. He pierces his earlobes in a cheap salon and Combeferre is furious with him for the first time when the holes become infected. Once they heal, he puts black plastic diamonds in them. He walks down the corridor with their stares glued to his back, but the students’ parents all know each other here and his father’s name forms an invisible bubble of protection around him. Not even the headmistress dares to comment on his disregard of student dress policy, simply pressing her lips together in a hard, thin line every time their eyes meet. Enjolras wants to scream with frustration. Combeferre is grateful.

Combeferre meets Courfeyrac in his English class when the teacher pairs them together on a poetry analysis assignment. Combeferre already knows his name before he introduces himself, smiling with so much genuine warmth that Combeferre thinks he can actually feel it against his skin as he smiles back, but maybe that’s only him blushing. When they walk into the library after class, Courfeyrac discussing how to approach the assignment and Combeferre silently wondering at him, Enjolras is already sitting by their favorite table behind the shelves in the back where no one ever seems to come. He has unbuttoned his shirt collar and undone his tie in his usual fashion and half of his hair has come loose from the carelessly tied ribbon in the nape of his neck as he bends over his book. The sun sneaking in through the high windows touches it greedily, making it glow like a golden curtain behind his fine profile. Courfeyrac’s breath hitches audibly in his throat. Combeferre feels no jealousy as he watches the other boy gape at Enjolras with the uniquely human mixture of terror and awe usually reserved for beholding natural disasters on his comically expressive face. Combeferre can’t hide his smile. Enjolras senses his presence and looks up from his book, smiling in an unusually drowsy way, sunlight pooling between his lips. _This is Courfeyrac_ , Combeferre says.


	4. IV

Courfeyrac hated nothing in the whole world but the _de_ in front of his name, had eyes that were even kinder than Combeferre’s and when he thought something was truly funny he would laugh until tears came streaming down his cheeks and every last person in the room was looking at him. He was taller than both of them, with sharp elbows, messy dark hair and a careless grace that was all his own. He was not truly pretty in the conventional sense, but you forgot all about it the second he smiled. He loved to make others happy more than anything else, partly because he was genuinely good and partly because he was secretly desperate to be loved, even though he had been blessed with love all of his life. 

Meeting Courfeyrac is not as dramatic as meeting each other. There is no feeling of the void when they lie on either side of him, their entwined fingers resting gently on his stomach, just the feeling of warmth and naturalness that Courfeyrac brings everywhere and now chooses to bring them. 

Courfeyrac feels as if he’s fallen through a rabbit’s hole into some strange land of wonder, Combeferre with eyes that sparkle with intelligence and kindness behind his glasses and Enjolras with the face of an angel, edges sharp enough to cut yourself on and a constant, ethereal and endless sadness following him like something evasive right in the corner of his eye seeming like two creatures not quite of this world. He falls into them, mesmerized and completely trusting, and they catch him and tuck him tenderly into the soft and intricate folds of their pre-established intimacy. Their love for each other flows seamlessly into their love for him and only makes it stronger, and he drinks it all down, giddy, and returns all that he is given twofold. 

The three of them have known each other for a week and are reclining together on Combeferre’s bed for the first time, Enjolras half asleep curled up on his side like a cat with his forehead pressed against Combeferre’s knee, when Combeferre gently slips his hand into the one Enjolras has curled up against his cheek. The touch is part natural and part a peaceful statement of facts. It confirms what Courfeyrac has secretly suspected all along, but his feeling of bereavement and sadness is still so absurdly strong that he doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or cry. Enjolras curls his fingers weakly around Combeferre’s and cracks an eye open to look at Courfeyrac. Combeferre is already looking at him, reading his face like one of his books and then he’s smiling, a smile full of warmth and tenderness, and offering Courfeyrac his other hand like a soft-spoken question. Courfeyrac scrambles clumsily across the mattress in his eagerness to take it and Combeferre links their fingers, still smiling the same bright smile. Enjolras gets up on his elbows as Combeferre leans into Courfeyrac, moving very slowly, asking for permission and reading it all over Courfeyrac’s face, not closing his eyes until their lips touch. It’s a short but gentle kiss, nothing more than a seal, but Courfeyrac still feels like he is falling. When they break apart Enjolras is looking at him, his eyes sleepy blue slits in his impossibly lovely face and Courfeyrac leans down towards him without thinking. Enjolras slips a warm hand around his neck as they kiss, mouth opening like a careless flower under Courfeyrac’s. Combeferre looks down on them lovingly as they kiss, sprawled over his lap like sleepy children, holding on to their hands and smiling.


	5. V

There are moments when the sheer gravity of their happiness warps reality like a protective bubble around them until the rest of the world seems like nothing but the rapidly fading memory of a bad dream, and then there are moments when it comes seeping back like a cold, black water that soaks their feet and forces them to huddle close together for warmth and protection. Courfeyrac comes out to his parents. Enjolras skips class after class and hides behind the gymnastics hall and reads his textbooks sitting cross-legged on the pavement, back to the rough brick wall. Sometimes Courfeyrac joins him there and they share a cigarette from a pack Enjolras has snuck out of the pocket of his father’s suit jacket. On week-ends they squeeze into the shabby photo booth in the Gare du Nord and take strip after strip, holding papers with slogans scribbled on them in front of their faces and on the last one, they kiss. Enjolras tears the strips into individual pictures and then they run hand in hand down the narrow métro corridors, spreading the pictures behind them like confetti. They crash through the doors of the train with the warning siren ringing in their ears, Combeferre anxious and out of breath but the other two laughing as the doors slam shut behind their backs, Courfeyrac excited and Enjolras flushed, vicious and lovely. 

Combeferre starts spending more and more time on the Internet, reading blogs and scrolling through the home pages of civil rights organizations. The other two lean in and read with their chins resting on his shoulders, the world expanding right in front of their eyes on the screen. Enjolras feels the blaze of that bright, pure idealism inside of him again, and for the first time he realizes that his anger is only a jagged piece in a much larger puzzle. This new insight pokes the faith Combeferre has taught him wordlessly, and it awakens grudgingly only to recognize the one it was destined to meet all along, and behind its shoulder – the unconditional love taught to him equally wordlessly by Courfeyrac. The three rise inside of him and clasp hands, tentatively and then with determination, standing as proud as his friends on either side of him.


	6. VI

Courfeyrac’s parents are out of town and the radio is on, music booming obnoxiously loud through the apartment. They are planning to go out but Courfeyrac is still lying out on the balcony, sprawled over the narrow concrete floor in a dramatic pose of heat-induced sleepiness. Combeferre can hear the bathroom door opening through a pause in the music, and he looks up as Enjolras shows up in the doorway. 

He’s in a short, pleated skirt with suspenders and a girl’s shirt with a prim rounded collar, impossibly long, skinny legs in black tights and feet heavy in his usual combat boots. His hair is tied into a ribbon and slung over one shoulder, sharp shoulders drawn back and eyes bold and bright as they meet Combeferre’s. Enjolras smiles, all defiance and wildness and love for him, pale cheeks speckled with dark freckles and the tip of his nose a little red from springtime pollen allergies.

And Combeferre breaks. The tenderness that wells up inside of him is too strong for his body to bear, surely. The whole world could not contain it. For a second, he feels like he’s going to drown. It’s just like those famous last lines of the poem, he thinks. This is how he ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.


	7. VII

The summer after graduation is the hottest since 2003. Combeferre’s mother flees the city for the countryside and they all move in with him the moment the door closes behind her. Paris is gasping, paralyzed in the impossible heat and freedom lies before them as endless, intoxicating and terrifying as eternity. Exhaust fumes hang like poisonous gas in the rippling air and France 1 shows footage of public fountains brimming with people desperate for a way to cool down. The death toll rises every day. They run down the burning pavements, the heads spinning, dizzy with the heat and still the world doesn’t spin fast enough for their liking. Their sweaty hands slip from each other, shoe soles sticking to the melting tarmac as to chewing gum and Enjolras can feel his blood throbbing in his temples. Courfeyrac pins Enjolras’ long fringe up with pink plastic clips to keep the damp strands out of his eyes and Combeferre’s shoulders sting with sunburn. Enjolras stays away from home for weeks on end and for the first time Combeferre’s narrow bed grows insufferable with the three of them in it, the mess of their tangled limbs glued to each other with sweat, so they spread the damp sheets on the floor. Many nights they can’t sleep at all for the heat. They lie awake, listening to the groans of the tiny refrigerator in the corner and the hurls of sirens in the street below, and their exhausted kisses taste like the sea. The milk goes sour and Enjolras can’t remember ever feeling so blissfully happy.

He enrolls at university at the end of summer, political sciences with a minor in queer theory. He’s nineteen years old and increasingly political, surprised by and struggling to gain full control of the power of his own words over others. His beauty is as fine, sharp and bright as mirror shards, but it is but a fierce afterthought to his words at times. His beauty is not there to please but to blind and stun, the way it always has been; it’s a challenge and a war cry, only there to attract until you’re close enough for him to yell in your ear. Many people give him looks in the lecture halls and corridors, but nobody dares to give him trouble. He is ever the provocateur, but the blind, animal anger of his school years is replaced by a focus and a determination that makes him no less terrible. His professors know him by name by the end of his first week. 

His choice of post-secondary education is a slap in the face of his father that finally wakes him from his absent-minded assumptions based on good grades and complete lack of insight in his son’s life, and forces him to take a proper look at him for the first time. The resulting argument threatens to tear down the ceiling in a lightning storm of every single word and fact about himself that burned inside of thirteen-year-old Enjolras as he lay staring at the ceiling above his bed in the dead of night, followed by a rain of china shards as he smashes the entire arsenal of antique vases in his father’s study against the wall behind his desk. His mother cries hysterically but is too lost in the dramatics of her own suffering to raise a word in protest as Enjolras finally storms out of the apartment minutes before the police arrives.

He shows up outside Combeferre’s door, two suitcases full to bursting at his feet and his eyes dry but gleaming manically. Combeferre doesn’t say a word, only takes him by the hand and shuts the door firmly behind them. He leads him to the neatly made bed and sits, the springs creaking as Enjolras lies down beside him and rests his messed-up, golden head in his lap. He lies perfectly still without relaxing, heart still beating too hard. His silence is as tightly clenched and aggressive as a fist as Combeferre gently runs his hands through his sweaty hair, still dull with china dust. Combeferre doesn’t ask. Enjolras’ hand falls on the blanket in the space between Combeferre’s thighs, palm facing towards the ceiling and fingers tense like the claws of a broken bird. A car honks in the street, loudly and irritably. 

Combeferre takes his hand in both of his, cradles it to his warm, stubbly cheek. You are _so_ loved, he says quietly, voice tight in his throat. Enjolras shudders and starts crying.

When he wakes up the next morning Combeferre’s arm is still curled around his waist and Courfeyrac has somehow materialized on his other side during the night, hugging the entire spread of the blanket protectively to his chest as he sleeps and as if that wasn’t offensive enough, he’s also managed once again to fall asleep on Enjolras’ hair. Enjolras lies still on his back, gazing up at the ceiling unable to move his head and just like someone who has just fallen from a great height he warily searches his body and mind, feeling for pain that might indicate that something is broken. There’s a wild-eyed clawing sensation somewhere deep in his chest; he can feel it even as the kind forgetfulness of sleep lingers like fingers of pale mist in his mind. He knows it well. He doesn’t think it will ever go away. In a way, he is grateful. But there is something else too, something entirely new – an emptiness, a calm, blank space inside of him where all those things he finally screamed at his father yesterday used to lie, trapped and chafing, like an ugly bruise just underneath the skin. It feels strange and oddly peaceful. As he lies there feeling Combeferre’s warm, slow breath tickle the cold skin of his neck and listening Courfeyrac’s soft snoring as the morning sun slowly seeps through the cracks in the blinds, he realizes that the scales are evened out, and essentially he doesn’t feel either happier or unhappier than yesterday. More than anything, he is relieved.


	8. VIII

There’s a girl in his queer theory class. Her name is Cosette and she’s the only one besides him who dares to argue with the professors when she doesn’t agree. She’s bright, just like him, but she shines with a softer, more gentle light where Enjolras pricks your eyes. She slips under his guard with natural ease and Courfeyrac jokingly claims that they look like twins as they walk down the hallways together, with her face that holds the same delicate beauty as his and his golden curls almost the same length as hers by now. They pick the lock on the door to the attic of the university building and climb the rusted ladder up to the roof during lunch breaks, Enjolras sitting cross-legged in front of her as she braids his hair for him, cigarette dangling in the corner of her mouth and Paris simmering somewhere far below them. They talk for hours, discussing equality and gender expression and their hopes for the future. She introduces him to feminism by spinning on feminist theory where it intersects with queer theory and it’s a revolutionary awakening for him. She hangs on to his words but she never yields for him when she doesn’t agree and his opinions forms around hers like a rushing stream around firm stones. Sometimes she talks about her father. Enjolras never mentions his family and Cosette does not probe his silence. Combeferre is in medical school now while Courfeyrac studies law, and her company fills the sudden emptiness of the additional hours they spend in the library. 

As the semester passes, a small group starts forming around the trio of Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac. There’s Cosette and her girlfriend Éponine with tired eyes and the smile of a she-wolf, who spends half their meetings bickering with Enjolras and the other half asleep with her head protectively cradled in Cosette’s lap. There’s Cosette’s friend Jehan, equal parts flower child and wildcat with dirt underneath his fingernails and a notebook full of poems in his bag. He was a captivating contrast of shyness and fearlessness, smiling at you from an inner world infinitely more beautiful than this one but still willing to step out of it and fight for his ideals with a fierceness that only Enjolras could dream to match. Jehan dyes the tips of his pale hair bubblegum pink and ties pastel shawls to the shoulder strap of his book bag, and Enjolras dons it all like armour the same way he always has, back straight as a flower’s stem and walking ten centimeters off the ground. 

There’s Courfeyrac’s friends from law school – timid, quiet Marius who seemed perpetually lost inside some dream from which he never woke, who devoted himself heart and soul to the causes and the people he believed in and loved, and then remained completely oblivious to the rest of the world, and Bousset with his shaved head and slightly confused smile who seemed as unable to get anything right as he was to do anything else than laugh about it. Then there’s Joly, with his nervous hands and a laugh as warm and abundant as Courfeyrac’s who’s a year above Combeferre in medical school and who Combeferre constantly finds himself stealing secret glances at even if Enjolras is sitting close enough to touch, and it is like a sudden breath of crisp autumn air in a room you didn’t even realize had grown stuffy until you decided to open the window. Feuilly is the only one there who’s not in university at the moment, a calm, kind boy with a huge heart and bright, humble dreams who Combeferre met via an online philosophy discussion forum. He sits quiet for the length of entire discussions, listening to arguments and counter-arguments and weighing them against his vast, self-acquired and lovingly curated knowledge base, and when everyone has fallen quiet he finally speaks a few, simple words that all at once makes the shiny conclusion feel startlingly inadequate, and results in an additional hour of enthusiastic debate along with an array of impressed glances that he is far too modest to acknowledge or even notice. No one is exactly sure where Bahorel came from in the first place, nor does anyone really care as long as he stays. His eyes sparkled darkly with mischief and he had the manners of a lusty, lazy tomcat who sprang to true life only at the smell of trouble or when confronted with something forbidden. 

Bahorel has a friend named Grantaire.


	9. IX

He’s trailing a few steps behind when Bahorel shoulders the door to the café open on a wet, windy Tuesday afternoon late in the fall and greets the gathered group with a booming _‘allo_ and a swirling gust of damp leaves that comes whirling over the threshold in their wake. He is wearing a tattered dark-green parka that looks several sizes too large for him and smells faintly of mothballs, and when he fumbles with the buttons as Bahorel is flinging his soggy pea coat at a brown-haired girl Grantaire recognizes vaguely from university several notices the smears of dried ochre paint on his hands. The curious glances are abruptly torn from him as the girl screams out in outrage, jumps the table fast as lightning and wrestles Bahorel into a headlock while Courfeyrac shouts encouragement from where he’s sitting in Combeferre’s lap. He takes off his sailor cap and runs a hand through his dark, soggy curls as the struggling pair crashes into one of the tables and sends Joly’s books flying and a tiny pixie of a boy with a messy ginger plait slung over his shoulder tears his eyes away from the havoc to smile his welcome at Grantaire and gesture to him to take the empty seat next to him on the worn-down couch. Grantaire sits down next to the boy and introduces himself over the laughter as Feuilly forces Éponine and Bahorel apart. Eventually, Bahorel is back at his side, glaring darkly at a smirking Éponine, and Grantaire is warming his cold, yellow-stained hands on a steaming cup of green tea, trying to occupy the physical space next to Jehan in a non-awkward way and taking in the atmosphere of this warm, miscellaneous and strangely endearing group when the door opens and delivers their last missing member in yet another gust of leaves and wet. Grantaire looks up as Courfeyrac shouts the newcomer’s name happily, and is met by the sight of a tall, thin boy in a bright red girl’s coat with a rounded collar and damp golden hair gathered in a messy bun on top of his head. The boy blinks the rain out of his eyes, pale cheeks flushing rapidly in the sudden heat of the crowded café, and when he opens them again – _so blue_ – they’re on Grantaire’s. He cocks his head a little to the side at the sight of the strange face, wedged in between Bahorel and Jehan. They haven’t had anyone new in a few weeks. 

\- He’s with me, Bahorel says as way of introducing the strange boy when he sees Enjolras eyeing him and throws a mockingly protective arm around his shoulders. The boy looks messy in a way that fleetingly appeals to Enjolras as he takes him in – all wild curls, stubble and _is that a paint smear on his cheek?_ The boy is staring back at him, wide-eyed. Enjolras nods stiffly as way of greeting, forces a smile and shrugs off his coat as he passes by where the boy is sitting on his way to Courfeyrac, who’s resting his chin on top of Combeferre’s head. The boy looks as if he has to search for his smile like the name of a distant, half-forgotten relative at a party when he returns it, and Enjolras only catches it from the corner of his eye as he leans down to kiss a grinning Courfeyrac and a tiredly smiling Combeferre on the cheek before tossing his book bag on the floor, kicking off his old combat boots and dropping down on top of their table, Combeferre moving his papers to make space for him. 

Grantaire watches Enjolras pull up his legs, cross them gracefully and rest his elbow on Courfeyrac’s shoulder, the smile still stuck on his face where he’s forgotten it. He sits quiet as the scattered group slowly knits together around Enjolras where he perches on his table, tucking slowly drying strands of hair behind his ears and starts a conversation that he seems to lose track of after a while, peeling of flakes of his already chipped glitter nail polish with the tips of his teeth and fingering a pink scab on the pale, bony knee that shows through a tear in his skinny black jeans. 

He barely manages to suppress the whimper of pain when Bahorel elbows him brutally in the ribs and hisses _“you’re staring”_ in a tone that is half amused, half scolding. Grantaire blushes furiously and tells Bahorel to fuck off in a hoarse whisper, followed by a low, pained whine. He thinks he sees Jehan smiling down in his lap in the corner of his eye and blushes even deeper. He can’t help it, and the boy is sitting not even five meters away and even though he hasn’t looked twice at him after stepping through the door he’s going to feel Grantaire staring at him, and fuck. His heart is pounding in his chest and his hands are almost trembling in his lap, and he doesn’t know if it’s from desire to paint this boy, this surreal boy who looks part angel, part dirty dream, or touch him, or hide his face in them and never look up again. 

Enjolras hasn’t slept properly and there’s a glum, oppressive heaviness in his body as if the miserable weather has soaked through his skin, along with a prickling sense of unease that he can’t account for. He wanted to discuss the about page of their group’s newly started blog, but now that he’s here with them he doesn’t feel like talking. He feels like sleeping, or breaking something. Combeferre’s fingers rests tangled with his in his lap and Enjolras tries to focus on the comforting warmth of his hand in his, but he can’t help but notice how Combeferre keeps glancing over at Joly’s table a little too often as he’s trying to talk to Cosette over Courfeyrac’s shoulder and even though it shouldn’t, it makes him feel hollow inside. The rain is tapping on the large café window like restless fingers. He looks up from where his fingertips are tracing the frayed edges of the tear in his jeans only to find the new boy staring at him. 

It shouldn’t bother him, Enjolras who wears his face as a slogan screamed at the top of his lungs, but anxious and sad and here – in this café, surrounded by the only people he can relax and feel safe with – the familiar stare hits his face as rudely a slap, and as the boy drops his eyes from him as violently as something hot from his hands, Enjolras flushes with anger and an unfamiliar, desperately uncomfortable self-consciousness. He is wearing a cut-off sailor dress borrowed from Jehan over his jeans and a red scarf tied around his neck and his hand flies up to finger nervously at the knot. Combeferre is still talking to Cosette and Courfeyrac rests with his head dropped in a dramatic angle on his shoulder, eyes squirmed shut and face buried in the soft wool of his sweater. In the corner of his eye Enjolras can see the boy staring down at his hands, looking embarrassed. 

Combeferre finally turns his head to look at him when Enjolras untangles his fingers from his and stands, picking his red coat from the floor. Courfeyrac groans a little in protest when Combeferre moves but doesn’t open his eyes.

\- Are you leaving?

Enjolras nods, pushing his hands through the still slightly damp sleeves and not quite meeting his eyes. 

– I’ll see you back home, he says quietly as he flings his heavy bag over his shoulder, and then he turns and walks out the door, head bare in the pouring rain, without saying goodbye to anyone and before Combeferre has a chance to ask if he remembered his keys this morning, tell him that there’s still some soup in the fridge, or ask him if everything is all right.

Enjolras keeps his eyes down on the métro home, head bowed as cold drops trickle down his face from his rain-soaked hair, imagining that the stares that he can feel on him like the touch of dirty fingers aren’t there until he acknowledges them by looking up. Someone shouts something at his back as he’s walking down the platform towards the exit, and he just digs his nails deeper into his palms in the pockets of his coat and pretends like he didn’t hear it.


	10. X

\- He left.

\- Don’t flatter yourself.

\- But he _left_. 

-Honestly, R, you’re not that scary.

Grantaire flings a curse at an unmoved Bahorel and flops back miserably on the bed, grabbing his pillow and burying his face in it. It smells sourly of cigarette smoke and spilled coffee. Underneath his embarrassment and his theatrical suffering there’s a dull ache, a slight pressure in his lower abdomen that occasionally trembles with the remembrance of blue eyes and pale, restless fingers. 

\- Not that it even matters, he mumbles darkly into the pillow, not even sure if Bahorel can hear him. Even if he wasn’t already taken I’d never stand a chance with someone like that.

\- Taken? Bahorel sounds momentarily confused. Oh, you mean ‘Ferre and Courfeyrac? Nah, I ain’t saying those three don’t love each other, because they sure fucking do, but I don’t think they’re together like that, you know, _together_ together. Combeferre and Enjolras have known each other since they were kids or something - they’re basically married, lives together and all since Enjolras got himself kicked out by his parents - and then they met Courfeyrac in some stuck-up Neuilly private school. But ‘Ferre’s fawning over Joly the second he thinks no one is watching him, it’s so ridiculous it’s cute, and I know two people who’ve slept with Courfeyrac like, this month or something. 

Bahorel pauses. 

\- I don’t know, he’s ridiculously hot and all that, Enjolras, but I think I’d be too scared to go for him even if those two didn’t have their hands all over him all of the time. He’s cool and all and with him in charge I think we can actually cause some serious trouble with this group of ours, but he’s sort of scary too. Sometimes he shows up looking all fucked up like he’s been getting into fights all week-end or something. Cosette says he’s every professor’s worst nightmare. I’m a big guy, but I wouldn’t want to get in a fight with him.

Grantaire grins, his eyes closed.

\- Well, since you’re getting your ass kicked by tiny girls these days – he starts, voice muffled by the pillow.

\- Hey, you don’t know ‘Ponine, Bahorel protests loudly and indignantly, diving down to snatch the pillow brutally from Grantaire’s hands to smack him in the head with it. She’s fucking lethal. I think I’m more scared of her than of Enjolras.

Grantaire rolls over on his side laughing, trying to shield himself from the furious pillow attack with his hands, thinking: _Enjolras_.

Grantaire paints him for the first time that night, before the image of his face slips through the fingers of his memory and is replaced by another, rough line art of flawed remembrance coloured too vividly by imagination. It’s almost morning when he finishes it, his tiny, cluttered room awash with the ashen pallor of first light and the sense of unreality it always brings him, a dull pressure of exhaustion behind eyes that are stinging from the smoke of countless cigarettes. Grantaire leans back against the wall and pulls another from the flimsy plastic packet, lights it and squirms his eyes shut as he takes a long drag and rubs at the side of his nose with a finger that is still sticky with red paint. He exhales and squints at the picture on the easel in front of him on the floor through the tendrils of white, caustic smoke, shivering slightly in the cold draught from the window. It’s a simple picture, just a profile. There’s a dark lump of sticky disappointment in his stomach, mixed with guilt. It’s not good enough. He knows it isn’t. He’s intimately familiar with the thought, but he’s too spent to fumble for his usual make-shift shield of sardonic bravado to deflect the blow. He sneers disdainfully, smoke leaking from the corners of his mouth, looking at himself from above through the eyes of someone else, bending over his dark, huddled-up form on the floor – laughing at the pitiful figure he sees, the fucking weirdo who’s stayed up all night to paint a sticky, clumsy picture of some ethereal bird of a stranger who caught one look of Grantaire staring at him and flew away in disgust. And yet, when he looks the face on the canvas – the pointed chin, the tiny pixie ears, the eyes that are too soft, almost melancholy – something trembles inside of him - a skinless, wistful tenderness as meaningless and pathetic as a broken child’s toy. Suddenly he feels so achingly alone, cold, bleary and miserable as the light of dawn across the floor, mouth rough with the taste of ashes.


	11. XI

He doesn’t plan to come back. He doesn’t. He’s not one to lie to himself. And yet, when his phone buzzes in his pocket during his Tuesday morning life-drawing class with a text message from Bahorel that simply says _three o’clock, Saint-Michel_ followed by an insolent smiley, his hands start shaking. Bahorel is late and Grantaire smokes three cigarettes in a row standing on the bridge and staring down at the rotting leaves swirling past in the murky waters of the Seine, traffic roaring behind his back, and then the packet is empty and he has to beg the fourth off a passer-by. 

He is sitting on a couch in the corner, squeezed in between the blond girl and the boy with glasses, his bright hair drawn up in the same kind of messy bun he wore it in last week. Grantaire can see him through the window as they walk up to the café and he knows him at first sight even though he’s sitting with his back to the window. Grantaire swallows and fists his hands in the pockets of his parka, trying to breathe through the sudden frantic beating of his heart. The warmth of the café embracing him as he steps through the door behind Bahorel is a relief after the cold, windy street. Everyone he remembers from last week is there, scattered in smaller groups in the back of the café. Jehan looks up from his book and smiles when he recognizes him. Éponine waves lazily from the couch where she’s lying, not bothering to get up, while Courfeyrac bounds out of his chair to hug Bahorel with his usual, blessed kind of unceremonious, genuine affection and almost bumps into a waitress on the way.  
Grantaire looks down at his shoes, the bright red of the sweater Enjolras is wearing searing at the edge of his vision from the corner of the room he’s trying too hard not to look at, and then Courfeyrac is hugging him too and his smile is so kind as he introduces himself and apologizes for not having greeted him properly last week and calling over his shoulder to Jehan that the artist he’s been talking about is back again that he feels momentarily encouraged, and then Courfeyrac takes him by the hand and tugs him across the room, weaving back and forth between the crowded tables to where Enjolras is sharing the couch with Cosette and Combeferre. 

\- Enjolras, _chaton_ , Courfeyrac calls tenderly, and as Enjolras glances up from the laptop balanced on his tucked-up knees Grantaire finally looks straight at him. He’s so pale he’s practically glowing, the rims of his blue eyes and the tip of his nose are red and there’s a pile of crumbles paper tissues in his lap. He has a cold and he’s even lovelier than Grantaire remembers him from last week. 

Combeferre rises from where he’s sitting and stands in front of Enjolras, straightens his glasses with one hand and shakes Grantaire’s with the other. Grantaire manages a smile, and then he’s shaking Cosette’s hand too before looking back down at Enjolras, who hasn’t moved. He’s looking at Grantaire silently, trying to hide the apprehension in his eyes, and then his cold eyes squirm abruptly shut as he virtually explodes in a ridiculously high-pitched sneeze. Grantaire has to fight an absurd desire to laugh even as his heart goes numb with a dull pang of senseless hurt. Combeferre hands Enjolras another tissue and Enjolras wipes his nose and sniffles before glaring up again.

\- Hello, he says in a raw, throaty voice. I assume that you don’t want to shake my hand. 

He attempts the joke, but his tone is stiff and guarded. Combeferre is looking at Enjolras. Grantaire’s throat has gone dry and for once he can’t think of anything to say.


	12. XII

He stays. Repelled by the coolness of Enjolras and drawn to the warmth of the others, he hovers around the group like a satellite, equal parts happy and secretly miserable. They take him in the same way they have done each other, appreciative of his kindness, comfortable in his company - that when he was in the right mood was as excellent for others as it was terrible for himself when alone -, and amused by his occasional drunken eloquence and his crooked smile that was wide and generous enough to suggest genuine amusement and a kind of rugged good-naturedness, but at the same time cutting with an irony that most of the time passed for dark humor even though it actually was something that went far deeper and hurt far more. If they think anything of how he sometimes sits quietly through entire discussions, seemingly absent-mindedly scraping at a speckle of paint on his wrist and trying to hide the look in his eyes by keeping them on his hands, they don’t show it. If anyone besides Bahorel notices the way he’s constantly avoiding looking at Enjolras, even though he usually ends up being their center of attention, only to steal long, wistful glances at him when he’s looking the other way, they don’t say anything about it.

Grantaire learns to exist in his presence, much in the same way you’d eventually learn to go about your life as usual in spite of a vague but constant pain somewhere in your body. Enjolras seems to go from actively resenting his presence to being apparently indifferent to it, but he still keeps a cool distance to him in a way that the others don’t and sometimes when he turns his head too quickly for Grantaire to tear his pining eyes off him in time there’ll still be traces of obvious discomfort and irritation in the look on his face and the way he holds his shoulders for several minutes afterwards. Whenever it happens, Grantaire blushes furiously and stares down at his hands, shame and bitter reproach burning behind his eyes like tears. He doesn’t ask himself why. He knows why. He’s always known why. He wouldn’t dream of it being any other way than this.


	13. XIII

They’re standing among mounds of dirty snow under a broken streetlight in a back alley of the Boulevard de Clichy in the early morning hours, the frigid air heavy with the thick vapor of their breath and the dull, distant pounding of club music. The world is reeling, the thin crust of ice coating the pavement cracking underneath the soles of Grantaire’s boots and Courfeyrac tightens his loosening grip around Grantaire’s waist, trickling warm laughter sharp with the smell of the whiskey they’ve drunk down his freezing throat as he stumbles, trying to regain their balance. He’s drunk and giddy with excitement and reckless abandon, the smell of spray paint heavy in his nose and mouth as Cosette decorates the rough grey wall with large, pink letters that blur as soon as Grantaire tries to read them. If he tips his head back on Courfeyrac’s shoulder he can see the stars through the black clouds, past the dark looming rooftops of the houses that surround them. He can make out a faint glow of bright hair from where Enjolras is crouching in a doorway close to the mouth of the alley, keeping watch over the street from where occasional drunken shouts and sweeping headlights of passing cars reach them like cryptic messages from some distant world far, far away. Grantaire can feel his presence like something warm and tangible, as real as Courfeyrac’s arms around his waist. He’s happy.

Suddenly the moment shatters as violently as a pane of glass. There’s a sharp cry of warning from Enjolras as a flash of blue light sweeps across the dark alley, and then he’s running towards them slipping on the ice as an angry, electrically enhanced voice is screaming _arrête_ from somewhere behind him. Courfeyrac startles and drop his arms and Cosette curses, sending the can clattering against loudly against the wall, and then Enjolras is past them and they are running blindly through the darkness for everything that they’re worth, feet slipping on the icy pavement and the cries and heavy footfalls of their pursuers echoing down the narrow alleyway behind them. The icy air is burning in his throat and the ground feels like it’s falling away below his feet as he’s sprinting and Grantaire prays that he won’t fall over and then they skid around a corner and Enjolras is pushing them, shouting that he’ll lead them off before spinning on his heel and setting off in the opposite direction, screaming and waving his arms, and Grantaire follows him. He doesn’t think, he just runs. He slips on a patch of ice and loses his balance and then there’s a hand in his, hot and urgent and he doesn’t fall and then they’re flying down the streets hand in hand, cleaving the frozen air and Enjolras is laughing as they run. They hear breaks screeching down in the street as Grantaire pulls Enjolras by the hand up a narrow flight of stone steps climbing the hill toward the Sacre-Coeur and then across an empty square, down a street, round a corner and into a doorway. A few breathless, desperate seconds as they can hear shouting too close behind and Grantaire’s numb fingers slips on the buttons of the keypad, shit, shit, shit, and then the lock clicks and they tumble through the door and manage to close it behind them before crashing up the pitch-black staircase. Enjolras presses against his back as he somehow manages to unlock the door and then they’re through, squeezing through before slamming the door shut and bolting it behind them. 

Grantaire falls back against the door, fighting for air like a drowning man, and then he slides down, letting his legs buckle and give way underneath him until he’s on the floor, back still pressed against the wall. The darkness of the narrow hallway is spinning around him and pain stabs his side like the blade of a knife with every desperate drag of breath, trembling with the sickening, continuous surges of adrenaline. Grantaire strains his ears, trying to make out any sounds from the street outside through the rush of blood in his ears and the deafening pounding of his heart in his throat, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t hear anything but silence and the hissing sound of Enjolras breathing heavily in the darkness somewhere above him. 

\- I think they’ve passed by, Enjolras whispers hoarsely after a few minutes of silence and heavy breathing gradually slowing down, and then he’s laughing again, sliding down to the floor next to Grantaire.   
Grantaire’s eyes have adjusted to the darkness and the sight of Enjolras’ face so close to his own in the gloom triggers a new, tingling surge in his stomach; open, flushed, eyes glowing. Strands of hair are sticking to the cooling sweat on his forehead. There’s a thin, studded leather choker necklace around his throat and a smear of spray paint on his cheek. _Savage Apollo of the backstreets_. His closeness is as physical as touch, and it’s making Grantaire’s skin heat and tingle. Enjolras is looking at him, radiant and impossibly lovely, and Grantaire can’t breathe again. He realizes he’s still drunk.

Enjolras looks away, down the hallway.

\- This is your place?

Grantaire tries to find his words.

\- Yeah. He grins, the corner of his mouth feeling like it’s slipping across his face. If you’re going to live the life of a starving artist, what better place to do it than Montmartre?

Enjolras hums. 

– Fucking lucky. Then he’s laughing again, heady and reckless and still without a trace of his habitual coolness in his face. It’s like Grantaire is seeing him properly for the first time. It can’t be real. He’s dreaming, even though he can’t remember when exactly he’s supposed to have fallen asleep. He’ll wake up any second now, cold and alone on the mattress on the floor. Still, the moment lingers for another heartbeat, and then another, and then a third. Enjolras smells synthetically of paint.

\- Think it’s safe to turn on the lights? 

Enjolras doesn’t wait for an answer. He gets up, leaving Grantaire reeling in the sudden shift of gravity, shrugging off his jeans jacket and letting it fall to the floor with a quiet clatter of studs as he disappears silently through the doorway leading to the only room. 

\- Street’s empty, he can hear him say. Where’s the light switch?

He remembers when it’s too late, with a dark, sickening lurch of terror as if he’s just missed the last step on the way down. He’s on his feet, losing his balance and staggering against the wall, shouting no and stumbles through the door just in time to see Enjolras, turned around in surprise, flicker on the light switch and find himself standing in a small, dingy room lit by a single naked light bulb, surrounded by paintings of his own face.


	14. XIV

They’re everywhere. On easels, flat on the floor, propped up against the back of the ratty antique sofa, leaning against the walls. There are soft watercolour ones and bright acrylic ones, simple profiles and large, intricate tableaus painted across wide stretches of canvas. Some are original, others are insolent re-workings of classical historical paintings. The very first one, the one he painted the night of the day he saw him for the first time is on the windowsill, propped up against a dying amaryllis and overhung with ratty Christmas tinsel. Every single one of them is of Enjolras.

He wants to die. He wants to close his eyes and never open them ever again. He wants to turn and run. He wants to hide, he wants to scream, he wants to cry. He wants to at least be able to look away from Enjolras’ face before the look of stunned surprise turns to the one of crushing, pitiless disgust that will sentence him to an eternity of damnation. He can’t do any of those things. He is forced to wait, frozen in terror and misery, naked and skinless and exposed in all his filthy, disgusting pitifulness, waiting for his sentence to fall.

Enjolras turns slowly on the spot, eyes moving from one painting to the next and recognizing his own face in every one. He looks at one of them in particular for a long while. Then he finally turns his head to look at Grantaire where he’s standing frozen in the door, gaze strangely hesitant.

\- So that’s why you’re always looking at me like that, he says finally, quiet. He lets out a shaky little laugh and raises his hand nervously. I always assumed you thought I was some kind of freak or something. Most people who stare at me do, he continues in the same voice, eyes downcast and worrying at an already chapped cuticle with his thumb nail.

Grantaire could’ve said anything. He could’ve forced a laugh and claimed it was all some sort of bizarre joke. He could’ve begged Enjolras for forgiveness. He’s still so helplessly drunk.

\- No, they don’t. His voice comes out sounding all choked up. It doesn’t sound like it belongs to him. Or, maybe some of them do. People fucking suck. But you’re beautiful.

He is standing surrounded on all sides by the secret content on his heart, poured out on canvas in the darkness of the night like shameful confessions and of course it’s all clumsy, ugly, unworthy of its subject. He can’t think. The words spill out of his mouths like shabby, miserable rags from a broken old suitcase that slips open on to a dirty, wet pavement.

\- You are. Not just your face. Not that it isn’t beautiful. It is. But it’s more than that. I was always looking at you, so much that I wasn’t always listening to you. Not that looking at you isn’t to listen to you, too. You weren’t talking to me, you were talking to Combeferre or Cosette or someone, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t hear you. You’re just – you’re so fucking brave. People have been terrible to you, I know, because some of them have been terrible to me too, and Bahorel told me your father kicked you out and that’s why you’re living with Combeferre, but you’re still not afraid to face them. It’s like you’re only truly alive when you do. I look at the world and I just want to hide. I care, but I can’t care because it just hurts too fucking much, so I tell myself and everyone else that I don’t and just look the other way and pretend while all along it’s killing me from inside. I’m too cowardly to care, too weak to take it all and still try to believe that it can get better. If I take it all in, I’ll rot, and still I’m rotting even if I don’t. I don’t believe in people. We’ve had so many chances, so much potential, and still we’ve fucked up, every single time. I don’t believe in ideas, because people will always manage to kill every single one. But I – I believe in you. I’m not even scared to, and there’s never been anything I haven’t been too scared to believe in. The world can’t ruin you, and you can’t ruin the ideas, because you are the ideas. You’re courage and acceptance and protest and standing up for what you believe in. I’ve seen you with ‘Ferre and Courfeyrac. I saw you tonight, just now when you told us to run the other way. You’re love. Grantaire almost sobs. 

Enjolras is still, quiet. Snow is melting from the boots he’s still wearing, slowly forming a dirty puddle around his feet. He’s wearing nothing but a too-large Rise Against T-shirt and there’s gooseflesh on his arms. Grantaire tries desperately and still can’t read his face.

Enjolras turns to the painting he’d been looking at before tuning his eyes on Grantaire. It’s on an easel, the largest painting in the room. Grantaire finished it just yesterday. It’s a re-working of Eugène Delacroix’s _Liberty Leading the People_ from 1830, with Enjolras in the place of Liberty. He’s wearing his studded jeans jacket and platform boots, brandishing a French flag with his long, bright hair flying freely around his shoulders and a fierce, sad expression on his face. The bodies that surround Liberty in the original painting are faceless, all wearing black business suits.

\- Is this how you see me? he asks, quiet, almost tender. Grantaire can’t see his face. He swallows, trembling.

\- Sometimes. But not always. Sometimes you’re just tired, or nervous, or laughing at something silly Courfeyrac just said. You’re ticklish. You squint a little when you read, like you actually need glasses. You’re always knocking things over. And sometimes you’re just mean. 

\- I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you. I just though you – I said what I thought.

He fingers at the Christmas tinsel untidily draped over the painting on the windowsill, Grantaire’s morbid attempt at holiday decorations. Jehan had been wearing it in his hair one day in December and when it fell out it had ended up in the pocket of Grantaire’s parka. 

\- My mother sent me a Christmas card. It was one of those expensive ones you get at the Galleries Lafayette, the ones that already says “Merry Christmas” inside so all you have to do is write the address on the envelope and post it. I don’t even know how she got ‘Ferre’s address.

Grantaire doesn’t know what to say. He’s still waiting for him to turn to him with a look of deepest disgust, to laugh at him, to leave.

\- I’m not brave. His voice is still so quiet. Or at least I wasn’t. I was just a scared, lonely, fucked-up kid who felt like I’d never been cared about by anyone my entire life, who’d start fights and hurt people just to feel like I was actually fighting back, like there was even something or someone to fight but myself, like there was someone else to hate. There’s nothing brave about violence. We just think there is, because it’s such a concrete way of resistance. It’s just ugly and brutal. _I_ was ugly and brutal. Sometimes I think I still am. Someone just found me and loved me before it was too late, that’s all. Someone just showed me that there could be something worth fighting _for_.

Enjolras turns his head. His eyes are soft, open, hesitant. He looks sad, and wild, and lovely. Grantaire doesn’t know where his adoration ends and his grief begins, the feeling of both so heavy and acute like a crushing ache in the back of his throat. He doesn’t know what to do, where to look, what to say. He doesn’t understand. Enjolras snivels, and then, impossibly, he smiles.

\- They’re all quite good, you know. You’re good. At painting.

A tiny pause. He bites his lip, looking at Grantaire through his eyelashes. He hesitates. Then, very softly:

\- You know you’ve got some paint on your face?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nerdycombeferre.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> nerdycombeferre.tumblr.com


End file.
